But the Silicon Valley travel agent had never been to Chapel Hill until this weekend, when the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau held a symposium for the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. The forum, held to coincide with Saturday's N.C. Pride festival in Durham, introduced agents to the area and its attractions.

"The more I know, the more I sell," Stanford said.

He's sent people to Savannah and Charleston when booking tours in the South. After getting the visitors' bureau invitation and seeing Franklin Street -- "delightful," he said -- he may add Chapel Hill and Orange County to the list. "If I can support an organization that supports gay people I'm going to do it," he said.

Spending by U.S. visitors to Orange County totaled $152.22 million last year, according to a report prepared for the N.C. Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development by the U.S. Travel Association. That was 3.2 percent more than in 2007 and ranked Orange County 24th out of North Carolina's 100 counties in travel expenditures.

But in recent years, and with a shift in the annual N.C. Pride festival to Durham, Chapel Hill hotels have lost gay travel bookings, said Laurie Paolicelli, executive director of the visitors bureau.

It didn't help, speakers told the travel agents Friday, that North Carolina already was perceived as hostile to gay men and lesbians.

The late Sen. Jesse Helms' strong opposition to gay rights made many think the whole state was like that, said Chapel Hill Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt, who is gay.

"His presence and the symbolism of that hung over us," he said.

But times have changed.

The state legislature passed an anti-bullying law this year that put sexual orientation gender identity in the statutes for the first time. Lawmakers also replaced the state's abstinence only curriculum with comprehensive sex education that teaches students about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases.

"Our schools are going to finally stop lying to people, stop taking the Just Say No approach and actually give them life-saving information,' said Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality NC, the statewide advocacy organization.

North Carolina is also the only Southern state without a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, though the state's Defense of Marriage Act does not recognize same sex marriage here or elsewhere, speakers said.

Still Kleinschmidt and Carrboro Alderwoman Lydia Lavelle, a lesbian, told the travel agents they've found support in their relationships.

Lavelle is a member of United Church of Chapel Hill, where she estimated 90 percent of the congregation is straight. Kleinschmidt told a story about getting nervous booking his commitment ceremony at the Carolina Inn, only to find "not an eyelash was batted."

Still, the recession has stung local hotels. Bookings for Pride travelers that once went to hotels in Chapel Hill are now going to the Washington Duke Inn and other hotels nearer the annual parade route, Paolicelli said.

She's hopeful that after seeing the local sights, including a cooking class at Southern Season and a bus tour of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, that may change.

"We don't have to build a better mousetrap," she said. "We just have to let them know we have a mousetrap."